Bringing empty homes back into use - approaches and interventions: evidence scoping review

7. Conclusions

Ensuring that empty homes are maintained, improved and put to the best possible use forms part of the Housing to 2040strategy. This scoping review aimed to provide an initial summary of evidence from the literature on empty homes, focusing on approaches to bringing them back into use. This concluding section summarises themes found in this literature.

7.1 Key findings relating to challenges identified in empty homes literature

Two main challenges to the work of bringing empty homes back in to use were highlighted: data quality in the identification and classification of empty homes, and challenges related to the application of interventions.

7.1.1 Data quality in identifying and classifying empty homes

LA Council Tax data is the main source used for the identification of empty homes in Scotland, but it was found that complexities may make this data less reliable for robustly measuring empty homes. Difficulties may arise because:

• owners are required to self-report empty homes, and there are reasons why they may not do this - in areas where a Council Tax premium is charged, there may be a risk that owners will try to avoid increased tax by failing to report their empty home and in areas where a Council Tax discount is applied to empty homes, owners may be disincentivised to report when their properties are brought back into use

• some specific categories of empty homes are exempt from Council Tax

• empty commercial properties and empty buildings with a land component which may be suitable for conversion into housing appear in different figures

• current data collection arrangements aim to quantify empty homes but are not designed to gather information about the condition of the homes - this makes it difficult to identify the most appropriate interventions and to forecast the financial input required to repair them to a standard which would make them suitable for re-inhabitation.

7.1.2 Challenges to the application of interventions

Pressures on human resource capacity and budgets for repair and renovation, the time and resource intensive nature of empty homes work and long timeframes involved in carrying out processes required to bring empty homes back into use were cited as challenging the effectiveness of the interventions available. In the Scottish context, although the SEHP provides a national service, each council area has locally specific challenges, their approaches to bringing empty homes back into use may differ and not all areas have a dedicated EHO.

7.2 Key findings relating to reasons for and impact of empty homes

The reasons for homes to be empty are locally specific and can vary depending on whether the empty home is located in an area of high or low housing demand. Underlying causes identified in the literature included systemic effects relating to de-population, demographic change and socio-economic decline. Individual level reasons ranged from emotional attachment to the property, inheritance and probate processes, ill-health to a lack of knowledge or finances. A finding common to several studies was that properties often remained empty because of the costs involved in addressing disrepair and the difficulty to LAs in locating and engaging sometimes uncooperative owners who may live at a distance and may lack the resources, time or motivation to bring their empty property back into use.

Themes in the literature drew out the way various issues related to empty homes as both symptom and cause can intersect to impact on a community. A number of the studies referred to empty homes as a "blight", referring to a potential association between long-term empty homes and damage to adjacent properties, as well as possible wider impacts of disrepair in areas with high rates of empty homes, which may affect property values and sustainability of local amenities, making people potentially more reluctant to move to the area, however in some cases it may be unclear whether empty homes are causes of or result from these issues. It was acknowledged in the literature that some amount of short-term empty homes form part of a healthy housing system.

7.3 Key findings relating to approaches and interventions identified to bring empty homes into use

The review identified approaches designed to address long-term empty homes that could be grouped into five thematic areas. Each will be taken in turn and the findings outlined.

• Dedicated Empty Homes roles (Empty Homes Officers (EHOs) in Scotland)

The role of EHOs is central to the SEHP approach and has rapidly expanded across Scotland. Several studies reported EHOs and their equivalents in other UK nations were found to be effective because they provide specialist knowledge and coordinate relationships for stakeholders at an operational level, but also act strategically to advance larger issues related to empty homes. This focuses on raising awareness and promoting good practice with the overall aim of reducing the numbers of empty homes and increasing the availability of housing. However, it was also acknowledged that this approach can be resource-intensive.

• Providing information and engagement

Providing information to support engagement was found to sometimes be sufficient in itself. Several studies noted that signposting empty home owners, housing associations, third sector organisations and potential buyers to opportunities can lead to successful outcomes. Discussions in the literature on information services also highlighted the importance of making the reporting process for empty homes as streamlined as possible and publicising and promoting options for owners, with coordinating organisations like SEHP playing a role in accessibly collating the support available.

• Financial measures

Financial measures discussed in the literature focused on Council Tax arrangements, loan and grant funding and reduced VAT on renovation of empty homes. Discretionary Council Tax discounts and premiums were, on the one hand, reported as positive evidence of powers which can be tailored and made responsive to local needs while avoiding penalising owners who are legitimately unable to act. However, several studies reported uneven application which meant the use of these discretionary powers was not maximised. In addition, some literature discussed the tension between perspectives of property as a home versus an asset and questioned whether the level of premiums was high enough to disincentivise wealthier empty property owners who may be motivated by long term gains resulting from rising property prices.

Case study examples illustrated the different ways loans and grants have been used to incentivise and support empty home owners who want to bring them back into use but find it difficult to do so due to practical cost barriers. A theme emerged relating to the particular success of councils who designed longer term strategic plans to access funding pots and used a targeted approach to maximise the social impact of available financial measures to contribute to wider regeneration projects.Although the tax, loan and grant interventions differ in their specifics the work of SEHP and EHOs, and equivalent roles in other UK nations, was described throughout the literature as central to raising awareness of, and supporting routes to access for, these available forms of financial support.

• Statutory Powers

The most common statutory powers for empty homes in the UK were found to be CPOs in Scotland and EDMOs in England and Wales. Whilst these tools were presented as an option to unblock some of the most problematic empty homes, the main drawback reported in the literature is the length of time and considerable resource required to undertake the processes involved. Financial and staffing constraints, lack of legal expertise or a mixture of these factors were the most cited barriers to using statutory powers. EDMOs can be advantageous because they facilitate empty homeowners to retain ownership, and attempt to balance the rights of property owners with the duty to secure occupation of empty properties in the public interest. However, the evidence highlighted significant capital outlay with attendant financial risk for LAs and EDMOs were reported to be subject to the same long timeframes as CPOs. Statutory powers were reported to be used as a last resort, with information provision, incentives and encouragement preferred to support owners to voluntarily bring their home back into use.

• Community action and partnership approaches

Community action initiatives and partnerships were found to carry out empty homes work in conjunction with actions to address other social and economic priorities. The case studies reviewed illustrated potential for projects bringing empty homes back into use to contribute to providing skills training and routes into work; reducing homelessness; increasing affordable housing provision; improving energy efficiency of homes; and engaging communities in regeneration. The literature indicated partnerships had the most lasting impact when they brought together housing associations with LAs, private owners and not-for-profit groups with the expertise of EHOs and their equivalents to identify and access multi-agency funding.

Challenges to these approaches identified in this review centred on the need to overcome different expectations and capacities between the groups involved and the complexities of funding eligibility, as well as tight schedules and budgets. Alignment of the different participants' values towards the common goal of bringing empty homes back into use for community social impact was found to be important to achieve delivery.

Further research

Based on the findings of this evidence review, research on the following topics may help to understand the complexities related to bringing long term empty homes back into use by:

• understanding potential behavioural impacts of planned interventions, such as changes to taxation, as these may have unintended consequences on rates of empty homes
• exploring the practicalities of partnership management to increase the evidence on how shared culture can develop between public, private and third sector groups and accelerate achieving common goals around empty homes work.